I had this idea a while back... how about a stream switcher for all 24/7 stations? The idea is that you would be able to program in which songs you want to hear on each station, and have the streams switch automatically when your choices come on. If you have 2 station choices which overlap, you could set priority with a simple numeric box next to each song (to the left of where the "No. Time" box is right now).

This could be an additional VIP feature, to make VIP membership more desirable as well. What do the rest of you think? Is this something you'd find useful / use? I think the implementation would be fairly straightforward, but I admittedly only use 1980s.fm, so comments from others who are on multiple 24/7 stations would be great.

Thanks!_________________"The question isn't 'What are we going to do today?'-- It's 'What *aren't* we going to do today?'"

Winter
Vice Admiral (Moderator)

Joined: Feb 07, 2012
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Posts: 115

Posted:
Fri Mar 22, 2013 11:32 am Post subject:

I actually think this would be really awesome. I tend to jump back and forth between multiple stations. Sometimes I change my mind about what I want to hear at the time, but if having a switcher is possible I don't see why we couldn't have a manual override, too. _________________Winter

da1e
Ensign

Joined: Jan 25, 2012
Member#: 1159
Posts: 21
Location: S. Illinois

Posted:
Tue Mar 26, 2013 1:02 am Post subject: agreed

I like the idea. Too many times I lose songs when I am not paying attention to the time and would love the stream to switch for me!!!_________________Without falling, there is no fear of heights.
Without nearly drowning, there is no fear of water.
Without crashing, there is no fear of speed.
Without trying, there is never fear.

AbeFroman
Admiral (Administrator)

Joined: Jul 10, 2010
Member#: 857
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Location: Chicago IL USA

Posted:
Sat Mar 30, 2013 4:33 pm Post subject: Re: Stream Switcher...

FerrisBueller wrote:

I think the implementation would be fairly straightforward

How would it be implemented? Wouldn't this have to be a feature of the listener's player (WMP, Winamp, etc) that's used to select a particular stream?

How would it be implemented? Wouldn't this have to be a feature of the listener's player (WMP, Winamp, etc) that's used to select a particular stream?

It would seem that there are several different ways to implement this.

Right now, you can get a free clock / alarm program here. This is the purely manual solution, and is probably the most cumbersome, and error-prone way to do it. Add up the amount of time you want to listen to a stream, set a timer for WatchMe (or another program), and repeat for each station. A kludge, for sure.

Another way is with timers for each station stream, which would need a change in the client-side player (iTunes, WMP, Winamp, and so on). I've already sent a suggestion to iTunes, so hopefully one option will become available soon. Again, you would have a lot of work to add up the song times, and determine when to set each timer. This would only be a bit better with automated switching.

Finally, I think the best way is through the streaming locations themselves. Right now, you would connect to an individual station stream to listen, like so:

So, at the end of each song on each station, the server would check the user's preferences, and switch dynamically to whichever 24/7 station they have selected, and updated. If you include the station as part of the CGI string, users can manually change between stations if they change their mind later on.

If you really wanted to make it fancy, you could have two options: listen to complete song, and listen to partial song (i.e. another station has a better song coming up in the middle of the one you're listening to). As long as you check with each new station's song being played, it should work easily enough.

Does anyone else have different ideas about how to best implement stream switching?_________________"The question isn't 'What are we going to do today?'-- It's 'What *aren't* we going to do today?'"